How to move wordpress from godaddy to bluehost

By admin October 7, 2012 wordpress 4 Comments

How to move wordpress from godaddy to bluehost, As like other normal wordpress users I have also start my blog from wordpress.com. Thereafter I have come on self hosted wordpress blog. I have registered a domain from godaddy and also take a hosting plan from godaddy on shared hosting. Installed wordpress from control panel and start to write blog.

But soon after I realised that many times my site goes down, and navigation from wordpress dashboard from one menu to other took lots of times, many times 500 internal server error, apache server at port 80 not responding etc. errors.

I asked godaddy customer support but they said that their side no any problem try to use wp super cache and check your plugins.

But actually after searching on google and many forums I came to know that godaddy hosting is not suitable for wordpress. And also they are not providing good support for wordpress. Many things not work proper in godaddy hosting like subscribe2 plugin for subscription. Finally I take decision to move wordpress from godaddy to bluehost.

And it is now a very great experience with bluehost, site loads very fast and navigation between menus in wordpress dashboard is also very fast smoother, also installing, uninstalling plugins and themes is very smooth and faster. In godaddy it took a very long time to install new plugin , many times failed to install. It is my experience that using http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ I have checked load time before on godaddy it was 3.74 sec and after on bluehost it took 1.75 sec to load the site. That is a great difference as load time matter in search engine ranking.

Transfer wordpress godaddy to bluehost is not too difficult but it took my lots of time to search a proper and best solution to transfer hosting. Many pages are confusing and provide different-2 aspects. In this post I will tell you the easiest way to move wordpress from godaddy to bluehost.

First of all it is to mention that there is no need of transferring your domain from godaddy to blue host as many posts tells on internet. It may take lots of time 3-5 days for transferring a domain as mentioned on bluehost also. And changing the nameservers only took 2-3 hours, as per my experience it start to point to bluehost after 2 hours.

One thing also to remember that you will be able to upload files into your bluehost server after your godaddy domain name server start to pointing bluehost. This thing was not told in many posts available on internet. You can do all preparation for transferring your hosting from godaddy to bluehost in advance to reduce your website outage time. Follow the steps mentioned below step by step and first complete read the article and understand all the things for starting the process.

Although there is no need to install wordpress on bluehost just by uploading all the files using filezilla ftp access and uploading database you can done. And also you have to create a database and a database user inside your bluehost. And in wp-config.php file you can write these values. But for easiness you can install wordpress it will automatically generate database and user and wp-config.php generate in this installation you can write these values inside your original wp-config.php file after uploading.

Steps for How to move wordpress from godaddy to bluehost

First using filezilla download all your wordpress files to your computer, the time will depend how large your data on wordpress to download and upload again bluehost. Large data will take more time, you can start it when you are going to sleep in night and in morning your data will be downloaded in to your PC, it will save your time.
Download wp-db manager plugin from your dashboard and click on backup, your database will be downloaded to your server folder. Now click on manage databases , select your latest databse file and click download to download your database file into your computer in .sql format. You can also download database file from godaddy control panel but it may be difficult for some users.
Signup with bluehost and type your domain name at starting of registration so that you have to not assign your domain later it will automatically assign your domain.
Install wordpress from cpanel of bluehost, using file manger download wp-config.php file to your computer.
Upload this zip file maintenance mode and extract to your desktop, now upload maintenance.php file inside your wp-content folder that is inside public_html folder. And upload maintenance.txt file directly to public_html folder, after uploading rename this file as .maintenance (remove .txt from the file). After uploading check the box show hidden files in file manager of your bluehost account. These files will automatically create maintenance mode when your nameserver of domain start to point bluehost. This will prevent your site from showing abrupt data during file uploading process. Later on you can delete .maintenance file to disable maintenance mode.
It is better to start file transfer process when your visitors are fewer visits to your site.
Now in bluehost cpanel click on phpMyadmin under databases tab, type your password and you will be directed to your database accounts. At leftside click on the database that is mentioned in your wp-confing.php file inside your bluehost public_html .

Now check all table entries , select drop and click go to delete all old entries. Now click on import and select your downloaded database file into your PC.

Now login to your godaddy account and click launch on domains tab, now click on your domain name (yourdomain.com) , now click on manage tab right to locked, now unlock your domain and click ok.

In the nameserver tab below change your nameserver as like NS1.BLUEHOST.COM and NS2. BLUEHOST.COM, see below and click ok. It will take 2-3 hours , may also take up to 48Hrs. In my case after 2 hours it has done.

You can see your site regularly after clearing cache when it will show , Site is under maintenance (because you have already copied maintenance mode files into your wp installation) your name servers has started to pointing to bluehost servers.

It is time to again upload all the files inside your public_html folder. Using filezilla upload all the files.

Click on ftp account inside cpanel , now click on configure at right side of ftp account. And click on ftp configuration file under filezilla. A confg. File will downloaded to your computer. Now open filezilla application and click on file tab , now import and give path to this config file. Now again click on file tab and click on site manager and select ftp.yourdomain.com at leftside and connect. Type your password and connect.

Select your uploaded content at left side of filezilla and select public_html folder at right side. Now start uploading your files, and overwrite all files.

After finishing upload, using filemanager of cpanel open wp-config.php file for editing and type the database name, user name and password from earlier downloaded file. Now save this file. Delete .maintenance file that was earlier uploaded.

Now you have finished all work, check all the plugins and navigation inside your site. Good Luck.

See the similar posts on How to move wordpress from godaddy to bluehost

http://deepaknair.com/2012/02/28/how-to-easily-migrate-your-wordpress-site-from-godaddy-to-bluehost/

http://www.slrlounge.com/how-to-transfer-your-hosting-to-bluehost

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/move-godaddy-bluehost-34261.html

http://www.bhagwad.com/blog/2010/technology/wordpress-hosting-on-bluehost-vs-go-daddy.html/